I've seen the movie many times, including the remake. I know Ed and Lorraine Warren visited the house and conducted their investigations. However, questions have always remained, what really happened? Was it all a hoax? So I finally decided to find out the answers to these questions and more.
(Note: I am a bit of a skeptic, but I do believe in ghosts just not the way their depicted in the movies or stories.)
On November 13, 1974 there was a mass murder involving the DeFeo family. Ronald J. DeFeo Jr., 23-years-old, murdered his entire family, consisting of his four siblings and parents, using a .35 Marlin rifle. Ronald was sentenced to six 25-year-life sentences at a New York correctional facility. He originally claimed voices in the house urged him to commit the heinous act, but he has changed his story numerous times since being incarcerated. Later Ronald claimed his parents were abusive and the crimes were committed while he was drunk and high on heroin.
Thirteen months later the Lutz family purchased the home for 80,000 dollars which was vastly reduced due to the murders. However, the Lutz only stayed in the house for 28 days before fleeing. Kathy and George Lutz were newlyweds. The three children did come from Kathy's previous marriage. According to her son Daniel, George insisted that the children be officially adopted. Which changed their last names from Quarantino to Lutz. George and Kathy had two daughters together named Noel and Gabrielle, before they divorced in the late 1980's.
The day the Lutz moved into the home, was December 18, 1975, a Catholic priest came by to bless the home, at the request of Kathy Lutz. The priest explained that "I was blessing the sewing room," says the priest. "It was cold. It was really cold in there. I'm like, 'Well, gee, this is peculiar,' because it was a lovely day out, and it was winter, yes, but it didn't account for that kind of coldness. I was also sprinkling holy water, and I heard a rather deep voice behind me saying, 'Get out!' It seemed so directed toward me that I was really quite startled. I felt a slap at one point on the face. I felt somebody slap me, and there was nobody there." (Anson, 2021). However, he never indicated encountering flies while in the home. Flies did however, appear in the home, in the second story room in the winter.
George and Kathy didn't have difficulties with money as portrayed in the movie. George and Kathy were able to put a large down payment on the house from the money they gained from selling George's mother's house and his home. George was also able to cut costs, which enabled them to afford a mortgage. "He intended to move his family's land surveying business into the basement, and he was able to eliminate mooring costs for his two boats since the property had a private boathouse. In his documentary My Amityville Horror, brother Daniel agrees that money for the house was not an issue as portrayed in the movies." (Anson, 2021).
The priest claims that every time he tried contacting the Lutz family to warn them about the house, noise interference prevented any phone communication. Kathy's aunt is not a nun, however she was formerly a nun during the events that took place within the home.
Cold spots could be felt throughout the house. Missy Lutz (Amy in the movie) had an imaginary/paranormal friend named Jodie which presented itself in different forms. One form was a pig and an angel. Missy Lutz drew a picture of Jodie, which is featured in the novel by Jay Anson. The creature appears more catlike than a pig, however, the book describes it as a drawing of a pig traveling through snow.
A window did smash down on Daniel Lutz's hand, which he shows in the documentary My Amityville Horror, his little finger is still bent from the injury. There also was a room in the basement painted red, however it wasn't a secret room. The red room was part of a storage space under the stairs. The DeFeo's stored toys within the room when they were alive and living in the home.
None of the windows in the house broke according to Christopher Lutz. However, the eye windows of Christopher Lutz's bedroom opened on their own many times. The room was originally Ronald DeFeo's bedroom and later became Christopher and Daniel's bedroom when the Lutz moved in. The front door did not get ripped off it's hinges and blood didn't drip down the walls either. George didn't fall into a hole filled with black sludge in the basement.
According to the two main starts of the movie Amityville Horror, nothing paranormal occurred on set. "I watched with great amusement as the studio's publicity machine went into action concocting these terrible things that were happening on our set, which weren't really," says Margot Kidder, who portrays Kathy Lutz in The Amityville Horror movie. Actor James Brolin recalls with amusement, "We're being asked, 'Is there weird stuff goin' on?' and we're goin', we're lookin' for stuff now, you know, cause we'd like to tell 'em, 'Awe, yeah, you wouldn't believe what happened yesterday.'" (Anson, 2021).
Was it all true? There's a lot of controversy surrounding the claims the Lutz family have made about the experiences they have had within the house. After they had told their story, George and Kathy both took lie detector tests to prove their innocence and they passed. The Lutz former lawyer William Weber came out in 1979 that the three of them came up with the story over many bottles of wine. The Lutz son Daniel claims the house ruined his life and that he still has nightmares. The real-life George Lutz admitted to being involved in roughly 14 Amityville related lawsuits to protect his family's story, rather than money. However, each member of the Lutz family have contradicted one or more of the other family members accounts. These same members have also on one or more occasions attempted to profit from their own take on the real Amityville haunting. So far no other owners have experienced any paranormal events within the house. Although the Lutz claimed that the evil within the Amityville home traveled with them.
Resources:
Anson, J. (2021). The Amityville Horror (1979)
Additional Information:
The Real 'Amityville Horror': Chilling Facts About the Crime and Haunted House
The Truth about "The Amityville Horror"
Smith, J. (2005). Ex-Resident of House Debunks Much of Amityville "horror"
The Shocking True Story Behind 'The Amityville Horror'
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